The Creation Of man - Part I
Jul 2018 |
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” — GENESIS 2:1
The Heavens And The Earth Are Finished
his proclaims the fact that when the heavens and the earth were completed, they were a brilliant array.
I think one can say without fear of any scriptural contradiction that everything, including the heavens, was affected negatively in some way as a result of the fall. In fact, Paul said in relation to this, “For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now” (Rom. 8:22).
So, as beautiful as the heavens are presently, how must they have looked before the fall? As far as our ability to view what presently is there, even that has been greatly impeded in this industrial age.
In the early 1970s, Frances and I, along with Donnie and Debbie and others, were in South Africa in a series of meetings.
At the conclusion of the meetings, we had two or three days’ layover, which we spent at the Kruger Game Preserve, one of the largest in the world.
I remember that on the first night we were there, I walked outside the little hut in which we were staying and looked up at the stars. It was something I had never seen in all of my life.
It seemed as if the heavens were literally blanketed with stars. Because of the pollution in the air back in the states, I had not seen anything of this nature. For nearly an hour I suppose, I stood there mesmerized, looking at this carpet of stars in the heavens, which was so beautiful as to be beyond description.
So, if one can think back in his imagination to before the fall, the heavens at that time must have been an array of unimagined beauty. They will be that way again. John the Beloved said, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Rev. 21:1).
Finished
When the Lord said that the creation, or possibly one should say, the re-creation, was finished, all was pristine and beautiful beyond compare. About 4,000 years later, while hanging on a cruel Cross, His Son would again say, “It is finished,” and the way back to God was then open, but what a price had to be paid! In fact, it was such a price as to make the original creation seem as if it were nothing. As beautiful as material things might be, they are still just things; however, the Son of God gave His life on that Cross, and nothing can equal that.
On a coming day, the final words will then be said, “It is done” (Rev. 21:6). In fact, this will be after the millennial reign when the new heaven and the new earth will be brought into being. Then, Satan and all of his cohorts of darkness will be placed in the lake of fire forever and forever, and sin will be only a bad memory, if that.
The Seventh Day
“And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (Gen. 2:2).
This presents an anthropomorphic statement. In other words, it’s a statement made about God in the ways and manner of men so that we might understand it better. God cannot be conceived as resting or as needing rest through either exhaustion or fatigue. The prophet said of Him that He “faints not, neither is weary” (Isa. 40:28). Cessation from previous occupation is all that is implied in this statement.
Incidentally, a morning here for the Sabbath day is implied, but no evening as with the other days is implied. The Sabbath is actually eternal. It foretells Christ, the true Sabbath, in whom God rests and in whom believers rest. This is God’s own rest of Hebrews, Chapter 4.
When it says that God “rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made,” I think we can derive from this phrase that He is not creating new universes. Since that time, He has given Himself to the new work of upholding His creation. The Scripture says, “By Him (Christ) all things consist” (Col. 1:17).
Since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, God has given Himself to the carrying out of the plan of redemption. Concerning this, Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (Jn. 5:17). That’s the reason that beginning with Genesis, Chapter 4, and continuing throughout the balance of the Word of God, we have the story of man’s redemption. The whole of this recorded past—6,000 years—has been spent in this process.
Blessing
“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Gen. 2:3).
This presents the third blessing. Williams said: “Blessing is stamped upon this introduction to the history of God’s interest in man and His creatures. He blessed the living creatures (Gen. 1:22); He blessed man (Gen. 1:28), and He now blesses the seventh day.”1
If we fail here to see what the Lord is actually doing, then we will miss completely the import of what is being said.
This Sabbath, or seventh day (Saturday), the last day of the week, is meant by God to be a type of the salvation rest that one finds in Christ. That’s the reason it was a part of the Ten Commandments.
When an individual accepts Christ, he enters into a Sabbath rest so to speak, which will never end. That’s the reason no mention is made of an evening and morning for the seventh day. Read carefully what Paul said: “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it” (Heb. 4:1).
We enter into this rest not by keeping a certain day. That’s not what it means at all. If that’s what we seek to do, then we will “come short of it.”
Rest
One enters into this rest by accepting Christ and making Him the Lord of one’s life. Then Paul said, “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them (Jews before the Cross and Jews after the Cross): but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them who heard it”. (Heb. 4:2).
Paul is saying that the Word preached to the Jews before the Cross did not profit them simply because they tried to make salvation out of the keeping of the Sabbath day. This meant that they had no faith in the one to whom the Sabbath day pointed.
Paul continues, “For we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb. 4:3).
In this Scripture, Paul is saying that all the works of God were finished on the sixth day; consequently, there must not be any more works. We enter into this rest, as stated, not by keeping a certain day, but by accepting the one whom the seventh day typified. Paul said, “For He spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works” (Heb. 4:4).
This was spoken in Genesis 2:2. Once again He emphasizes the fact that all the works are now finished. This means that if man tries to find salvation by works or maintain salvation by works, God has sworn in His wrath that man will not enter into His rest by such efforts.
Christ And The Cross
The apostle then said, “For he who is entered into His rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His” (Heb. 4:10).
So, we see from all of this that God blessing and sanctifying the seventh day refers strictly to Christ and the rest that He brought us by what He did at the Cross on our behalf. We obtain this rest by exhibiting faith in Him and His great sacrifice. If we try to obtain it any other way, which then places us in the position of works, such activity angers God greatly (Heb. 4:3).
When God finished all His work on the sixth day, and He “saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31), that meant that all work and works were finished. To be sure, even as Paul said in Hebrews, Chapter 4, it pointed to the coming redemption found only in Christ, which can only be obtained by faith and never by works. So, the Sabbath was meant to portray Christ and the great rest that He would afford by what He did for the human race in the offering up of Himself on the Cross. Consequently, the Lord blessing and sanctifying this particular day carries a meaning far greater than the mere fact that He had finished the creation.
The Resurrection Of Christ And
The First Day Of The Week
If we are to notice in the book of Acts and the Epistles, the Sabbath, which is Saturday, gradually fell by the wayside, with the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection of Christ, taking its place (Acts 20:7; I Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10).
Jesus fulfilled all of the law, which included the Sabbath. As stated, He rose from the dead on the first day of the week, and this was, no doubt, done purposely. It signals not an ending, but rather a beginning. And so it is!
Generations
“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens” (Gen. 2:4).
“These are the generations,” occurs 11 times in this first book of the Bible. Generations refers to “divine divisions.”
The phrase, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,” refers to the manner in which all were created as outlined in Genesis, Chapter 1. As stated, the Lord has an ordered procedure about all that He does. His government is perfect regarding creation, as well as all other things. He is a God of order.
In this government of order, much of the time, one can tell what God is going to do by what He has done in the past. There is no chaos about Him. At the same time, due to man’s fallen nature, there is nothing but chaos about him. Consequently, for man to have an ordered existence, he must serve God and, thereby, learn the ways of the Lord that he may walk therein. Only in this manner can man walk in a semblance of order. Otherwise, he has disorder.
One only has to look at the nations of the world that subscribe, at least to a certain extent, to the Bible. This means that they have at least a goodly number of their population who serve the Lord. That nation will be orderly and will prosper. Otherwise, as we have already stated, there is chaos. Someone has well made the following points and rightly so:
No Bible, no freedom!
Some Bible, some freedom!
Much Bible, much freedom!
The Lord God
The phrase, “In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,” presents the new name of God as Jehovah Elohim.
Jehovah is the absolute, self-existent one, who manifests Himself to man, and in particular, enters into distinct covenant engagements for man’s redemption, which, in due time, He fulfills.
Concerning this new name, Williams says: “This chapter reveals Christ as Jehovah Elohim, man’s Redeemer. The first chapter reveals Him as Elohim, man’s Creator. He first prepares the beauteous world in which man is to dwell and then He creates man, and, as Jehovah, enters into covenant with him. These two great titles of Christ are distinguished throughout the entire Bible and finally appear in its two closing chapters, which treat of redeemed man and a new earth.”
The words created and made literally say “created to make.” The idea is that God made the world in such a way that it can be almost endlessly developed. This is tied in with man’s dominion, which, regrettably, has been at least partially taken over by Satan. Consequently, that which God originally intended, which is a greater development, has been all but halted in its tracks. However, this will be remedied with the coming new heaven and new earth.
This article is an excerpt from the book 'The Fall Of Man' by Jimmy Swaggart.
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